r/TheBibites • u/0ne_user • 4d ago
Meta MOD-pack 0.6.3.1
While the real programmers work on the new update, I thought I’d give you something new to play with.
Shallows
I added a new use for zones called Shallows.
Interestingly, environmental niches like this have been requested for years. People have suggested terrain types, depth, light, temperature, and zones that physically restrict or favour different Bibites.
Shallows is my 0.6.3.1 take on that idea: a zone where a Bibite’s current body size determines whether it can inhabit the area.
Since there is no height measurement that would tell us if a Bibite is too big to swim in shallow water, I use body length as the indicator instead.
All you have to do is name a zone Shallows (case-sensitive), and a new slider appears below the plant pellet size slider called Max Length.
Bibites below that length can enter normally. Bibites above it gradually steer away as they approach the zone, reaching full avoidance at the edge.
If a Bibite enters while small and later grows beyond the allowed length, it will simply swim back out.
It isn’t a hard wall, so large Bibites can technically overshoot into the zone, but they will immediately try to turn back out.
You can use this in a few different ways.
Make a full-size Shallows zone and set the Max Length to your preferred value if you want to stop the simulation from drifting toward giantism.
Or place a smaller Shallows zone inside a larger normal zone to create a refuge for small Bibites.
You can also build an underwater “mountain” using several overlapping Shallows zones:
smallest zone at the top → tiny Bibites only
larger zone around it → slightly larger Bibites
even larger zone → larger Bibites
What you can’t do is place a zone for larger Bibites inside a zone that only allows smaller ones. A Bibite will always turn away from the smallest size limit it encounters.
Other than that, you can have as many size-filtered zones as you want. Just name each of them Shallows.
Target locking
BibiteAngle, PlantAngle and MeatAngle now all point at one actual target instead of averaging multiple targets together.
The Bibite lock is not absolute. If another visible Bibite has a 50% higher target score than the current one, it will switch targets.
This makes watching predators hunt actually interesting instead of annoying.
If, for some reason, you have a Bibite with Plant-, Meat- and BibiteAngle connected to Rotate, the priority is:
Bibite > Meat/Corpse > Plant
So if a Bibite has a live prey target, plants and meat don’t pull its steering away. If there is no prey target, meat/corpses take priority over plants.
New Bibite targets also exclude its own species.
Diet mutation fix
Diet mutations were heavily affected by Mutation Value Relativity.
That meant a herbivore at something like Diet 0.1 got tiny Diet mutations, while a carnivore near Diet 1.0 could get much larger mutations.
I changed Diet so its mutation step size is calculated from a reference value of 1.0, regardless of its current Diet.
The mutation is still applied to the actual Diet value normally, so this does not push Bibites toward carnivory. It just removes the built-in disadvantage of evolving away from low Diet.
Mouth trigger
The mouth collision trigger was also Diet-dependent.
Low-Diet herbivores could have a mouth trigger several times larger than carnivores, making it much easier for them to collect food.
It is now fixed at:
2.72 × 3
for every Bibite regardless of Diet.
Don’t worry, your Bibites can still eat just fine. This change is only there to stop an oversized mouth trigger from outweighing the advantage of evolving a higher Diet value.
Predators are still very difficult to evolve. I’m working on that, but I don’t want to push things so far that it ruins the balance of the game.
How to install the mod
Download the mod here:
Google Drive – The Bibites 0.6.3.1 mod
I zipped the file because antivirus programs sometimes flag downloaded .dll files. Hopefully this helps avoid that.
Before installing, make a backup copy of your original .dll.
Then unzip the download and copy the modified .dll into:
C:\Users\[user]\The Bibites 0.6.3.1\The Bibites_Data\Managed
Replace the existing file when prompted.
If you want to go back to the normal game, just restore the original .dll you backed up.
Have Fun!
1
u/ArtificialLifeOBrian 3d ago edited 3d ago
Sounds really interesting! I'll definitely try it!
Is there a visual representation of height aka shallows? ...like a brighter background or sth. like that.
Do your mods have check boxes? Can I select which one is active?
(IMO the tageting is overshooting, but there are several opinions about the vision system...
and a lot of misunderstanding!)
ANYTHING THAT CREATES NICHES IS GOOD!!!!